I could not agree more with this letter. As a Special Education Teacher, I can say that no one sees the fear and tears more than those in the special education realm. My students, who have been identified and have IEPs stating that they are not intellectually capable of completing grade level work, are required to take the same tests along side their peers.

Yes, I can read the content area exams to them, but it doesn’t help if they are unable to retain the information. The ELA exams are even more upsetting because I am forced to put grade-level text in front of them, read the directions and set them off on their own to read, comprehend, infer, and then do writing pieces incorporating what they learned in the passage.

I work hard everyday and love my students more than anything. I teach the same thing, in different ways everyday, and the next day they come back and look at me like I am speaking a foreign language when I ask them to do the exact same thing we did the day before.

Additionally, I have classroom teachers pushing my students away. Yes, I get graded based on how they perform in their special classes with me, but those teachers are getting graded on their performance in all other areas. They are no longer being referred to as “our students” but now they are my students and I am constantly being told they do not belong. It is breaking my heart because I spend my days striving to have my students as mainstreamed as possible in the least restrictive environment.

This will only get worse. Tension is high, work days are long and there are no longer days off. I know I personally am at work until 5 or 6 every night and spend my weekends developing my lesson plans or collecting my APPR artifacts to “prove” that I am a good teacher. At school teachers are crying after school and snapping at each other due to the overwhelming amount of stress that we are all under. If things do not change I am afraid of where things are heading.

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Isn’t there some wealthy billionaire out there who will come forward, not be afraid to speak out for public
education, not be afraid to admit charters, vouchers, online learning, privitization schemes, ALEC education policies
are all wrong for academic success? Are they so unChristian, they refuse to see what they are doing to school children, particularly special needs children?
How can those in education allow these wealthy politicians to get away with using big money to buy elections; to buy school boards; to eventually wipe out teacher unions and make teachers become slaves? There has to be a way to stop the Gates and the Bloombergs, The Waltons and the Broad/Rhee/Jeb Bush/Christie/Jindal brigade? Isn’t there anyone out there with both money &testicular fortitude willing to help the teacher in the classroom? He or she has no defense against Gates & Bloomy’s big time money being poured into the pockets of politicians for self serving gain.
In this great country of ours, will no wealthy billionaire or group help the teacher teaching the future of our country? And I mean teach…not “test?” Are all billionaires in America with the Gates/Bloomberg/Walston/Rhee/Klein mentality of “Let’s privatize education and put the schools under mayoral control- not the people, (God forbid there be a democratic process) and make it a free enterprise entity so we billionaires can profit even more?

I’m 80 retired. Taught K-8 speced resource room/itinerant/etc for 15 yrs 1965-1979, taught music K-8, chorus 9-12, reg grades K-8, taught graduate level courses=Behavior Mod, Methods for Learning Disabled, Methods for Social Maladjusted, Pscyhology, Mental Health, etc., This site reports just like back then. We haven’t progressed at all in spec ed understanding since those years it seems. What a disappointment.

Progress!? We’re not even stagnant; we’re going backwards! All the education to learn how to reach and teach each special ed student is going down the drain. According to the powers that be, all you need is a script and a computer. Any teacher who plans to remain a teacher has to be crazy to take on the most vulnerable students. They are murder on your VAM.

What I’m looking for is not a billionaire but leadership from the various Insert-disability-here Societies of America, which supposedly exist to advocate for children with disabilities. But education does not appear to be on their radar screens.

For my kid’s disability, all I hear is we’re looking for a cause and a cure. They have as much of a chance of finding those things as the alchemists had of producing gold.

The idea is not to educate, but frustrate the teachers. Therefore, there will be a greater turn over and that will keep the pay scale low. In IL, it takes 10 years to be vested in a pension plan, so very few will draw any kind of pension. Eventually, that will solve the pension crisis.

“The big problem. . .” Yep, I didn’t start teaching until I was 38 and since I’ll be retiring through the Missouri Public School Retirement System I’ll not be able to collect anything from Social Security even though I paid into it since I was 16 (1971). At least give me my money back.

As a thirty year veteran special Ed teacher, I know what you say is true and it is criminal to treat special needs children this way. Let some of these TFA superheroes come in and try to do our job. See how far they get.

TFAers couldn’t handle a week or two in a special needs class. Hell, let’s have them take care of the student who doesn’t know where she is, needs diapers changed frequently and who has already started menstruating. Yep, they’ll last a year or two.

I work in a center school for students with severe cognitive disabilities. When people make decisions for students they seem to forget this one percent of the population and we are then are challenged with trying to make the Marzano evaluation, VAM, testing, and so on fit.

When so much is outside the locus of control of the teacher it looks like the system is trying to set teachers up to fail on purpose. Furthermore, it’s not like these students aren’t trying their best. To be required to consult with students about their performance when their health ( think seizures…) and mental capacity (think what we used to call profound) is what it is, doesn’t seem compassionate. They can and do learn but not as fast and as much as “required.” So is this a set up to “prove” that students like this don’t deserve teachers and only qualify for custodial care?

in light of the current trend to make teachers at will employees, who will advocate for these students? It is a challenge and perhaps made more difficult by each student being so unique to prove student growth and being accountable. Currently there is a standardized test where if a student on this level doesn’t respond independently a teacher places their hand on the answer. Honestly, is this really the best we can do? Is all of this really to help the student in some way?